Digitech Whammy Modification

It appears digitech is finally making a new whammy pedal that’s true-bypass, as well as having mono (ie: glitchy) and polyphonic (like the EHX POG) modes. That coupled with the fact that some people have experienced problems with this mod (I never did), I recommend just buying one of the new ones when they come out.

I’m leaving this page up as it’s still a fun mod to do, and you can do things with the momentary switch that you can’t do with any other whammy.

Here is a demo of what a modified whammy can do (in addition to having crystal clear bypassed tone).

BELOW IS A COMPLETE WALK-THROUGH ON HOW TO TAKE YOUR WHAMMY PEDAL FROM ZERO TO HERO IN JUST 10 EASY STEPS.

Like everyone else, your whammy starts off like this:

BEFORE WE START, GATHER UP THE FOLLOWING SUPPLIES:
-Soldering Iron/Solder
-Phillips Head Screwdriver
-7/64″ Allen Key
-Few feet of hook-up cable
-Drill with a unibit, or appropriately sized bits
-3PDT switch of your choice (I used a blue one from Pedal Parts Plus)
-SPST micro momentary switch (part# 275-1571 from Radio Shack)
-2PDT momentary (only if your doing the momentary mod).
-LED/Bezel of your choice
-1k Resistor for the LED
-Adjustable wrench

STEP 1:

Removing the allen screws. You’ll need a 7/64″ key, or a plier (if you don’t mind scratching the screws up).

STEP 2:

Remove the phillips screws holding the MIDI jack in place.

STEP 3:

Opening it up. Be careful not to force anything during this step as you could damage the pedal.

The enclosure is in two parts, the baseplate, and the faceplate. You want to gently move the faceplate towards the right (the side with the MIDI jack), and it should push back away from the faceplate. Then push the baseplate towards the left (sliding it off the output jacks) and it should come clean off.

Here is a video showing you how to open the pedal up:

STEP 4:

Remove the momentary switch that serves as the current bypass. We will be moving it to the back of the enclosure (using a smaller switch). Also unsolder the cables leading to it, to make the rest of the modification easier (no momentary switch flopping around everywhere).

STEP 5:

Put the 3PDT in its place.

STEP 6:

Cut the output trace. There’s a tiny, thin trace between the two little blobs of solder that you need to cut. Use an X-acto, or utility knife. If you have a Multi-Meter, test for continuity. You can do it without it, but it would be harder to trouble-shoot if not working right.

STEP 7:

Cut the input trace. This one is easier to cut.

STEP 8:

Wire it up! Standard true-bypass wiring. To solder to the tiny blobs, I loaded the blobs with some extra solder before trying to solder the wire to it.

STEP 9:

Powering the LED. Since the WH-4 runs off AC power, we can’t just tap into the power where it comes into the board. After some poking around, I found some 5V DC power where marked on the board. The negative can be taken from a variety of places. I used the one marked on the board. I found a 1k resistor in series with the LED worked perfectly.

**WIRING OVERVIEW**

**SWITCH WIRING**

STEP 10:

We still nee to be able to access the original momentary switch to calibrate the pedal. Solder the black/white cables to a momentary SPST switch of your choice. I used a Radioshack 275-1571 for mine. You can mount this switch anywhere you want. I mounted mine on the rear of the unit so it’s not visually distracting. I reinforced the soldered joints with duct tape as the black/white cables are rather delicate and felt like they would break if bent too much.

Everything mounted and ready to close. Notice the paper, to prevent shorting out with the new, fatter, circuit board area.

To put it back together, follow steps 1-3 in reverse. Here it is all put back together.

Mine has the extra 2PDT momentary, for quick stabs. The wiring is identical to the 3PDT, and you just wire them in series (one after the other). Although there is circuit board under the word ‘Whammy’ on the front, there is a small spot where there is enough clearance for a switch.

An added perk of the momentary switch, is when you have the effect engaged via the 3DPT, if you press the momentary switch you get a 50/50 blend of dry/wet in certain settings! So you can get some sounds this way that you can’t get normally.

The instructions on this page serve only as a guide. I take no responsibility if you break your pedal, or hurt yourself. SO BE CAREFUL!!

I found my modded WH-4 sounded excellent. Clean bypassed tone, and no noise or anything. This has been the case for people I have modded the pedal for, and many people who have contacted me after modding the pedal.

There have been a small amount of people that have experienced some slight noise problems after modification. This may be due to their setup, or any of other reasons.

No idea there. Are you using any other pedals at the same time? Distortion/fuzz pedals often pick up radio. Digital pedals don’t normally do that.

AllanDecember 27, 2011 at 10:19 pm

could you tell me if you know how to do this here is what digitech sent me

Allan,

Does the Whammy pick up radio when used alone? If so, it’s usually a proximity issue, and won’t happen in every place the Whammy is used. However, soldering a 330pF capacitor between input and ground inside the Whammy will eliminate radio interference.

thx for the great tutorial *thumbsup* unfortunately i think i’ve bricked my whammy… the true bypass seems to be a mute switch now – any ideas? did only the 3DPT mod… is the led mod neccessary for powering reasons? ( sry – i’m a noob :) )

The reason for the new LED is that the old one is now ‘always on’ since we want it that way for true-bypassing. The new LED is so you know wether or not the effect is engaged. Not needed, but it’s helpful.

OK. Think I’m halfway there…. I got the input and output wired up to the 3PDT, and it will pass the “bypassed” signal with the power off (good sign that the true bypass is working). The problem I’m running into is twofold:

1) The “calibration” switch still seems to be functioning like an on/off switch (even when wired up to a new Radio Shack SPST momentary switch like shown. When the 3PDT switch is switched “ON”, the SPST momentary switch will still turn the effect “ON/OFF” when toggled. I assume that’s not supposed to happen, right?

2) When running a fuzz pedal after the Whammy (with the Whammy “bypassed”), it picks up radio signals like crazy (which aren’t picked up when just plugging the guitar right into the fuzz). I haven’t installed the LED yet, is this a problem that the switch is not “Grounded” in some way? Right now the whole middle section of the 3PDT switch is empty. I don’t see anywhere in your diagram where the switch is grounded. Do I need to do that?

1) That’s 100% normal. It’s not a “calibration switch”. It’s actually the on/off switch like you always had before. The reason we still need access to it is for calibration. In order to use the button this way you hold it down while plugging the power in, then you sweep the pedal back and forth, in order to calibrate it. So you never actually press it during the course of normal use. It’s only exposed so when you need to calibrate the pedal, you can. In the years I owned the whammy I only calibrated it a handful of times, and nearly all of those were after I took apart and reassembled the pedal.

2) Fuzz pedals are notorious for being fickle about stuff, and for picking up radio. The switch is grounded through the body of the pedal (which is grounded). It’s probably because the whammy is putting out a buffered output and your fuzz pedal isn’t liking that. Does it still act that way with the fuzz before your pedal? Either way, there’s not much you can do about fuzz and radio noise really.

Yeah I got the “cal” switch thing figured out and now it’s working well. The biggest issue was all the problems getting those solder joints down with on the input/output FX where there were empty holes :) This thing’s held together by chewing gum and duct tape… I hope I don’t drop it.

The radio interference thing is weird though. There’s no interference when using the fuzz on it’s own, there’s no interference when using the whammy on it’s own, only when they’re combined.

I did some searching and found that it’s a somewhat common problem with TB switching when the input FX is not grounded in the switch wireup when the effect is bypassed (as the diagram you shared above is not). Apparently that open input when bypass can act as a receiver when high gain sources are combined like a fuzz. Instead, I wired it up like like this (which should ground the FX input when bypassed):

Plus, the pedal wouldn’t be putting out a “buffered” output when it’s in bypass mode. That’s why we bypass it in the first place :)

Yeah, before the bypass mod, if I put the fuzz after the whammy, turning it on would make it shriek uncotrollably and lose the low end (because of the buffered signal). But now (since the buffer is bypassed with the whammy off) the tone of the fuzz is as normal as it should be, there’s just an undercurrent of radio interference if you’re not playing anything or decaying a note for too long.

I’d still like to get that figured out and think I’m still not grounding the bypassed input FX lead somehow.

You can always reenforce the joints with some hot-glue. It won’t improve the solder joint at all but it will help the mechanical stability a touch.

Yeah there’s a ‘ground everything’ way to wire stuff up. It normally isn’t an issue and the diagram I put up is easier to understand, when looking at it, so for DIY purposes I’ve gone with that wiring for this guide.

You can try electronically (as opposed to mechanically through the enclosure) grounding the switch(es) but then you run the risk of having a ground loop, which can also be problematic with noise/fuzz/etc…

So in short, not really sure what the best course of action is. It doesn’t hurt to try grounding things and seeing what’s up after that.

Not necessarily better but you can physically run a wire from the ground on your switches to the ground on the circuit board, but that may cause ground loop problems.

danielMarch 26, 2012 at 3:39 am

i’m having the same problem. the spst switch acts as an on off but the 3pdt when activated makes insane feedback noises when the whammy is shifted up or down. when stepping on the momentary switch, it makes the whammy go into true bypass… so its like the 3pdt is acting like the momentary and the momentary acts as the 3pdt… i followed the diagram precisely though so i’m not sure what is going wrong..

All of that is normal. The old momentary switch you don’t ever touch, unless you want to calibrate the pedal.

The momentary and 3PDT are wired up the same, so you don’t need to use them at the same time. If you want the effect on permanently, turn on the 3PDT, if you want it on only for a second, then use the momentary. If you have both on, you are creating a feedback loop, BUT, if you set it up an octave up setting and play, you get a cool sounding “dry + 2octave up” kind of sound (like in my demo video towards the end).

But all of that your experiencing is normal. You just have to learn to use the new switches/functionality.

OK… thought we had it all figured out, but it’s all gone up in smoke :)

I finally plugged it back into my board tonight after getting everything back together, and while it certainly is now “true bypass” (doesn’t badly buffer the signal in front of it, passes signal when it’s not powered) the clean signal coming out is much quieter, and more veiled, then when I just bypass the pedal entirely (like the most severe form of “tone suck” that you would try to prevent with a mod like this).

I have no idea what went wrong as everything is functioning as it’s supposed to (no problem with signal routing or noise or issues), but the signal through it is much quieter it just sounds awful.

If I turn the pedal on and use the “dry out” jack, it sounds great clean, just the right volume and tone as if the pedal wasn’t plugged in at all. But the “clean/pedal off” tone using the “wet” output sounds awful.

Obviously not blaming anything on you or the theory behind this mod, just trying to think of what I possibly could have done to cause this issue and how I can correct it.

Bad switch? Bad wiring? Any ideas?

Any guidance would be great. Thanks again for you help through the process.

Not sure. I don’t have a WH-4 anymore to do further testing/tweaking on, but I know that the Molten Voltage mod is more thorough that mine (although more expensive). Might be worth getting in touch with them to see about having them do their mod.

If I run an “octave up” effect and leave the footpedal all the way down (so it’s just passing that normal “clean” signal before shifting the octave, that tone is much like what the tone should be. It’s much louder and cleaner. As soon as I “bypass” it via the 3PDT switch, the tone and volume just dive. It’s as if when in bypass the signal just isn’t cleanly getting from in to out.

Well I don’t even think it’s that anymore. I just ran a straight wire from the “input” lead on the input jack (identified on your drawing) to the “out” lead on the output jack (identified on your drawing), bypassing the switch altogether, and it still has that “tone suck”.

I unplug the cables and put them in any other true bypass pedal and the tone and volume are right back where they should be (so it’s not a psychological thing with a buffered tone or cable length or anything).

There’s something on the board that’s sucking the tone/volume out when i have it running through the jacks and the PCB board (even when taking a lead right from the positive terminal of those input/output jacks). I don’t know if something got damaged during the soldering and it’s doing some small voltage divider somewhere and part of the signal isn’t making it all the way through, but it ain’t gettin’ there :)

I’m just using normal old bell wire (that I’ve used in TB mods before without issue) so I don’t think it’s that.

I think there’s an issue where there’s still ground connected on the other side of the board. I was always happy with the sound of mine and never experienced funny business, and have since moved onto a WH-1, so can’t really confirm one way or another. Hope that helps!

FelixApril 22, 2012 at 1:31 am

Hi Rodrigo

Thank you for that great tutorial and mod! I did it today and it works fine.

Just a few questions (some are yet in discussion):

1) I had also the felling of getting a bit loss of volume…so maybe Josh Wheeler had already found a reason for that?

2) 3pdt set ON and pressing momentary switch accidently together. With this case, it’s possible to let sound engineers freaking out, when generating accidently a double hell of insane feedback :). Maybe you did something against it? Maybe a 5V relay wired with the LED which “close” the connection to the momentary switch when LED is lightning (3pdt aktivated)? Better way to solve this?

3) some tiny and high (electronic) noise when distortion pedals are ON in the chain: What would you do to solve it? Maybe isolate the new wires in the whammy, maybe something else?

1- I think there might be some wiring things that I need to work out. It may not be fully true-bypass. I don’t have a WH-4 anymore (I bought a WH-1 a few years ago) to test with though, and there appears to be a new whammy coming out soon (true-bypass with monophonic(wh1) or polyphonic(ehx pog) modes).

2- That’s working ‘correctly’. Basically that causes a feedback loop. If you use this on octave setting (+1/+2, -1/-2) and play at the same time, it makes for an interesting sound.

3- Not sure there. I never experienced any noise/volume issues with my setup, but some people have reported that it doesn’t play nice with high gain pedals. (may be related to point 1)

Hi Rodrigo
Finished up the mod
All the functions do the switching and pedal working properly
However, getting a good buzz in both effect and bipass
Sounds like a grounding issue as it runs through the guitar as well
The buzz gets louder when then you contact the strings on the guitar
Also affected when touching the casings on the cord ends.
Does running the + voltage for the led through the switch have any chance of causing this?
Any insight or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Ed

I was able to determine that the buzz was caused by a bad power source to the amp which was causing a grounding issue with the entire system
Once I got things plugged into groundeds power source the buzz is all but gone
I still have a minor noise issue. Here’s what is happening
When the effect is engaged the signal path is a bit noisier than prior to the mod
Is this to be expected. This is a concern because I run my whammy first and do not want that noise transfers to my other pedals
When In bypass I am getting a lot of noise, sounds like a ossilating RF signal
This is with the pedal running independently , not running into or from any other effect.
Not happening with anything else in my rig
Any idea what this may be or what the fix is

I rewired the switch using the same layout that josh posted above
It cleared up the buzz and most of the noise
There is still a noticeable amount of high frequency noise when in bipass only
What is the detail on adding a capacitor to take this out

I did some posting on DIY stomp boxes and got some great input.
I used shielded George L cable from the input jack to the switch, the diagonal jumper on the switch, and from the switch to the output jack,
That did the trick, no more interference bleading into the signal
Tha is for you help on this

Hi, Rodrigo & Guy’s! I’ve spent much time with this mod & managed really hum less bypass with the help of shielded wires, but new problem – when I touch the pedal – hum goes in spite of the fact that my multimeter showes short net between jack ground & housing.

I was wondering if you can help me out… i’m trying to repair a busted switch in an old WH1… the old one was no use, so I ordered a spare from a guy from ebay in germany and a couple of days ago it arrived… I wen’t on an disasembled my WH1 and replaced de switch succesfully (following the same path as the old switch) or so I thought… now when i play i can only get two sounds, a fifth above an a third above, and none of the other switch positions seems to do anything… my cuestion really is if you have/know the wiring for this particular model, or know where i can get it, I can not find anywhere online… the switch in cuestion has 6 terminals but in the circuit there are only 5 that seem to be conected… thanks in advance, and great mod BTW

Thanks for keeping this page up! I just did TB and LED, and it works great! Not bad for a first-timer. The only thing I noticed is a slight increase in volume when turning the whammy ON, I guess it can be an advantage too.

Hi all. I had a go at this to do the simple true bypass mod as my original button busted i figured why not. Things are not going so smooth for me. The first thing that went wrong was the little solder blob on the input side completly lifted out and solder would not re-attach…after some fussing i finally got some to set back down, though i’m not sure if it’s making contact with the trace that’s on the underside of the board (under the input jack) which leads to “l4″…i’m not getting any reading with the dmm…can some one please tell me what, if any, reading you’re getting on the input side small blob. I’m getting a true bypass signal but not effect. The pedal powers on and i can hear it going through all of the settings but no effect signal makes it through. Any help is greatly appreciated. I wouldn’t mind seeing other photos of the wiring some of you other guys did…if anyone is kind enough my email is imyourinterest@aol.com …did you guys follow rodrico’s switch wiring exactly or did you follow the “true bypass” link?

A couple of people have mentioned similar things (the blog coming off, or not being there at all). I suspect later WH-4s got skimpy with the solder explaining that. Sadly I don’t have a WH-4 anymore (I scored a WH-1 a couple years ago) so I can’t take any readings/pictures. Best of luck.

Hi RSZ, I’ve done the wiring as you suggest and I have no more problems with high frequency in bypass mode. But now when I engage the pedal there a click. I’ve tried to sold a 1.5 Mohm resistor between input and ground and output and ground but it’s the same. You can hear the click only when you engage the pedal, no when you switch to bypass. Any suggestion?

Hi I have a a problem with the expression pedal on my whammy 4, it doesnt stay where I leave him, im trying to used the mode of harmony but in the back possition never works, it never goes fully back, what can I do??

Has anyone tried the whammy dt and whammy 5? Do they fix these issues. I personally love the whammy 4 and think this mod is a good addition. This pedal is all about wild and crazy noises the true bypass does it justice. I too noticed some noise and when this pedal is calibrated properly the only noise i hear that i don’t like comes from any setup with the whammy (tb) in bypass mode with the (any) guitar volume on zero. It is then only amplified by any pedals with a gain stage as part of the noise floor. I have a large setup and have A/B’d everything, tb loop every section and the only one is the 9vAC 1.3A.

The noise is not the end of the world … in fact it goes away with the volume turned up… or just hides in the background. Its not even that this pedal does not play nice with others. Guitar direct into amp is perfect. Guitar through the whole setup without whammy is perfect. Guitar to whammy to amp only and with the whammy off the noise is there.

BoX & Rzs HELP me please! what did you guys do to correct this issue? should I re-wire with longer wires and run them around the side of the case instead of over the board? The link is down. Anyway thanks for the great mod I want this pedal to play nice with my 20 other pedals. would love to A/B/C test The Latest whammy’s. The 4 can still be my forever pedal if I can figure this out and make noise I do like. I read about a 330pF cap from input to ground gets rid of radio interference that may be experienced but dont take my word… read up on it… anyway one issue at a time, I’m reviving this thread like I hot rodded my whammy!

on some incredible luck and good timing I have got my hands on a whammy dt. So the bummer is I already opened my whammy 4 again so I can’t do much useful testing yet. I can report that the whammy dt in true bypass mode does not have the same zero volume issue. it has the option to switch to buffer mode so that the hammer ons and pull offs sound more natural. So the tb switching in the dt is an electronic relay. the noise sounds like a leaky ground from the wh4. Shielded wire may help as well as the 330pF cap but I think due to the AC power supply the whammy 4 may be limited to the option of tv with some chip noise that comes in with guitar volume zeroed. Or the god awful buffered bypass tone hate. Both

on some incredible luck and good timing I have got my hands on a whammy dt. So the bummer is I already opened my whammy 4 again so I can’t do much useful testing yet. I can report that the whammy dt in true bypass mode does not have the same zero volume issue. it has the option to switch to buffer mode so that the hammer ons and pull offs sound more natural. So the tb switching in the dt is an electronic relay. the noise sounds like a leaky ground from the wh4. Shielded wire may help as well as the 330pF cap but I think due to the AC power supply the whammy 4 may be limited to the option of tv with some chip noise that comes in with guitar volume zeroed. Or the god awful buffered bypass tone hate. The whammy 4, 5 and dt all require calibration. It seems a few whammy shift options were traded off the fx list on the 5 and the dt from the 4 that only hardcore whammy users would notice but not fit over. DC power and true bypass are +1 in my opinion. Expandable foot switching on the 5 and dt is good but you decide if it’s worth the expense of the dedicated dry output. All 3 rule with midi the dt being slightly more complex. I don’t want to comment too much on sound because I still want to try and kill the access noise that drove me insane. I wonder if the 5 and dt have this 330pF mystery cap in the circuit? I will only go as far as to saying the whammy 4 and whammy dt definitely have their own flavors of awsomeness to showcase. I believe the DT to have the same polyphonic algorithm as the updated whammy 5 but lacks the option to revert back to classic mode experienced in the whammy 4. All versions have their own perks. I would say the 4 is closer to the original but the dt and 5 have much better real pitch shifting and realistic raised tune, drop tune and harmonies. anyway a proper sound shoot out will be in order once I legitimize the whammy 4. I only just removed the small noise to make my

on some incredible luck and good timing I have got my hands on a whammy dt. So the bummer is I already opened my whammy 4 again so I can’t do much useful testing yet. I can report that the whammy dt in true bypass mode does not have the same zero volume issue. it has the option to switch to buffer mode so that the hammer ons and pull offs sound more natural. So the tb switching in the dt is an electronic relay. the noise sounds like a leaky ground from the wh4. Shielded wire may help as well as the 330pF cap but I think due to the AC power supply the whammy 4 may be limited to the option of tv with some chip noise that comes in with guitar volume zeroed. Or the god awful buffered bypass tone hate. The whammy 4, 5 and dt all require calibration. It seems a few whammy shift options were traded off the fx list on the 5 and the dt from the 4 that only hardcore whammy users would notice but not fit over. DC power and true bypass are +1 in my opinion. Expandable foot switching on the 5 and dt is good but you decide if it’s worth the expense of the dedicated dry output. All 3 rule with midi the dt being slightly more complex. I don’t want to comment too much on sound because I still want to try and kill the access noise that drove me insane. I wonder if the 5 and dt have this 330pF mystery cap in the circuit? I will only go as far as to saying the whammy 4 and whammy dt definitely have their own flavors of awsomeness to showcase. I believe the DT to have the same polyphonic algorithm as the updated whammy 5 but lacks the option to revert back to classic mode experienced in the whammy 4. All versions have their own perks. I would say the 4 is closer to the original but the dt and 5 have much better real pitch shifting and realistic raised tune, drop tune and harmonies. anyway a proper sound shoot out will be in order once I legitimize the whammy 4. I only just removed the small noise to make my pedals happy again. The noise really is no big deal the problem is any pedals with noise issues only get amplified by overdrive, fuzz, distortion and boost type fx. I am getting good use from my compressor as the last pedal before the amp. I think I may end up keeping both…. And still try to snag a whammy 5 they are that good. I may be the first to demo a whammy dt into a whammy 4 or whammy 4 Into a dt as well. I will report back more detail audio findings and less tech at a later time. I want to still commend rod on this modification. it’s a great new way to enjoy a longtime favorite on many boards.

I forgot to mention, I have an old digitech rp-80 lying around. To be honest there is a lot of bang for buck in there. sure it’s dsp and I don’t like all this Ada and dad conversions but it has stereo outs and tons of fx amp and cab modeling and even it’s own version of the famed whammy pitch shift fx digitech blessed us with. I’m gonna throw it in with the sound shoot out and I bet the rp 80 whammy is still good and will still compete. I have reviseted the rp 80 several times in my travels specifically for the whammy fx. They can be picked up used for $50 give or take. Buffered and tone suck is the only thing the rp 80 knows. But as an all in one stop shop to the intro to pro set ups it’s assumed the rp will be your whole signal chain therefore… No sensible tone to compare it to. Lol it will equally suck your tone on and off!

ok so I did not need this 330pf cap or shielded wires. After some audio probing around I fixed the issue by attaching a jumper from input ground to output ground. Looking inside the jack I made sure to solder to the side that lifts when the jack is inserted. Noise is gone. Perfect true bypass. There may be a time when I have to consider if the dry out is good but I haven’t used it yet. I completed a head to head to head with interesting results. I set up tab loops for each pedal and calibrated them all 100%, and ran clean only through all 3 straight to my amps clean channel. I made sure to set the whammy dt to true bypass mode, as it has optional buffered mode to smooth out the momentary switch for drop tune hammer on and pull offs. Trained ears will notice dap bypass or non true bypass mode does smooth these transitions better by altering attack. RP 80 wins for value hands down due to its features galore. The whammy fx with all almost compete with the dedicated pedals. The octave up and down fx stand up well a little loose on the 2 Oct up and down with a similar taste of glitchy tracking as the 4. There is even some Easter egg harmonies not found on the dedicated models. The rp80 may not have midi but you can program heel and toe poaitions which is pretty neat! The whammy 4 and dt will have something the 5 will be without and that’s a drop tune setting. It is one of my favorites on the 4 and it did it right. The dt has made this a whole new expansion into the pedal. The drop tune section and momentary foot switch expand the dimension of how the pedal can be used and how tunings and harmonies can be stacked. This is also backed up by some tight polyphonic tracking. I really enjoyed the addition of the standard/4th interval and standard/5th interval harmonies and the ability to add dry signal to Octive up and down. The whammy 4 still fights a good fight. All of the harmony and de-tune sections were very tight in quality comparison to the whammy dt. The octaves are still very good but really loosen up at 2 octaves. the whammy 4 is more focused than the rp80. To compare the dt and the 4 here is where the toggle on the 5 comes in. The 4 has some note seperation that sound like phase expansion. The 5 and the dt have an expanded sound that quickly locks on and holds the right phase. Each one sounds cool and is capable of amazing things. This momentary and true bypass mod for the whammy 4 still makes this pedal better than the rp80 and even the whammy 5 to some extent but not quite the dt. There are some cool ways to use the momentary for the whammy 4 depending on the setting. It can stab fx on or off depending on the main switch position. It can add dry signal on some settings. It can ring modulate and self oscillate. These pedals categorically should not be compared to each other however for their weight class they all score exceptionally well when all things are accounted for. The dt is on my board and the rp80 and whammy 4 will serve as backups until my kids learn to whammy like a Jedi. I raised one Octive then lowered one Octive on the next whammy in the chain and they did a good job to restore the original pitch. I ran all 3 pedals at the same time and it got a little bent but still shifted within desired programmed pitch. I may have contacted extra terrestrials at some point with this madness.

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Digitech Whammy is the clear winner here folks. Worth the price of admission at all levels. Just make sure to calibrate these. Read the manual and do I proper so you don’t make these peals look bad. I have changed rubber feet and tightened the pedal nuts to make sure it’s set up right. You will know by making sure the bypass sound should be identical to heel down position. If you lightly rest the rubber feel on heel or toe position, strum a chord, then put on and off pressure on the rubber feet in the same heel or toe position and repeat. If you hear pitch bending with pressure on the rubber stoppers past the natural resting point the pedal needs calibration! This is true of any abnormal sweep range for the whammy as well but the rubber feet one is tricky. Rock your socks off!

Just wondering here…
Do you have to install a new LED absolutely after installing the true bypass switch?
I mean: Can’t you just rewire it so you still use the “effect on” LED that’s already there?
Or maybe it would be just overly complicated?